Film
The years immediately following WWII saw the release of two of the most popular Christmas films in US history: It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Moviefone listed the two movies as number two and three respectively in their "25 Best Christmas Movies of All Time". The Times of London, in a similar ranking, had the two in tenth and eight respectively, while placing fourth 1942's Holiday Inn, the movie that launched Bing Crosby's White Christmas. Particularly Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, starring James Stewart has been called "a testament to the family values of small-town America just after WWII."
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) regularly appears on lists of the worst films ever made. Paul Jacobson, the film's producer and a former unit manager for the television program, Howdy Doody, described his film as a "Yuletide science fiction fantasy", and with the best of intentions, hoped to bring something to movie theaters at a time of the year when there was a paucity of children's entertainment other than the annual Disney feature. In Jacobson's film, Martians kidnap Santa Claus in a plan to bring fun to their listless, TV-obsessed children. Once on Mars, Santa mass-produces toys using a computerized machine, foils a sourpuss saboteur, and generates fun for all. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians has been novelized, adapted to musical stagings, and has taken its place as a holiday cult classic. Child actress Pia Zadora played one of the Martian children and years later commented, "It was very well done, considering it was shot twenty years ago - gimme a break - and really is very entertaining. It's become a Christmas classic, really."
Read more about this topic: Christmas In The Post-War United States
Famous quotes containing the word film:
“The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half- piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigued. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“A film is a petrified fountain of thought.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)